1997 BUICK REGAL Owners Manual

Backglass Antenna (If Equipped)
Your AM-FM antenna is integrated with your rear
window defogger, located in the rear window. Be sure
that the inside surface of the rear window is not
scratched and that the lines on the glass are not
damaged. If the inside surface is damaged,
it could
interfere with radio reception.
~- - --
NOTICE:
Do not try to clear frost or other material from
the inside of the rear window with a razor blade
or anything else that is sharp. This may damage
the rear defogger grid and affect your radio’s
ability
to pick up stations clearly. The repairs
wouldn’t be covered by your warranty.
Because this antenna is built into your rear window,
there
is a reduced risk of damage caused by car washes
and vandals.
If you choose to add a cellular telephone to your vehicle,
and the antenna needs to be attached to the glass, be sure
that you do not damage the grid lines for the
AM-FM
antenna. There is enough space between the lines to
attach a cellular telephone antenna without interfering
with radio reception.
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Section 4 Your Driving and the Road
Here you’ll find information about driving on different kinds of roads and in varying weather conditions. We’ve also
included many other useful tips on driving.
4-2 4-3
4-6
4-6
4-12
4-14
4-15
4-16
4- 17 Defensive Driving
Drunken Driving
Control of a Vehicle
Braking
Steering
Off-Road Recovery
Passing
Loss
of Control
Driving at Night 4-19
4-22
4-23
4-24
4-25
4-25
4-27
4-3 1
4-33 Driving
in Rain and on Wet Roads
City Driving
Freeway Driving Before Leaving on a Long Trip
Highway Hypnosis
Hill and Mountain Roads
Winter Driving
Loading Your Vehicle
Towing a Trailer
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Defensive Driving
The best advice anyone can give about driving is:
Drive defensively.
Please start with a
very important safety device in your
Buick: Buckle
up. (See “Safety Belts” in the Index.)
Defensive driving really means “be ready for anything.”
On city streets, rural roads
or freeways, it means
“always expect
the unexpected.”
Assume that pedestrians
or other drivers are going to be
careless and make mistakes. Anticipate what they might
do. Be ready for their mistakes.
Rear-end collisions are about the most preventable
of
accidents. Yet they are common. Allow enough
following distance.
It’s the best defensive driving
maneuver, in both city and rural driving.
You never
know when
the vehicle in front of you is going to brake
or turn suddenly.
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Drunken Driving
Death and injury associated with drinking and driving is
a national tragedy. It’s the number one contributor to
the highway death toll, claiming thousands of victims
every year. Alcohol affects four things that anyone needs to dnve
a vehicle:
0 Judgment
0 Muscular Coordination
0 Vision
0 Attentiveness.
Police records show that almost half of all motor
vehicle-related deaths involve alcohol.
In most cases,
these deaths are the result of someone who was drinking
and driving.
In recent years, some 17,000 annual motor
vehicle-related deaths have been associated with the use
of alcohol, with more than
300,000 people injured.
Many adults
-- by some estimates, nearly half the
adult population
-- choose never to drink alcohol, so
they never drive after drinking. For persons under 21,
it’s against the law in every
U.S. state to drink alcohol.
There are good medical, psychological and
developmental reasons for these laws. The obvious
way to solve this highway safety problem
is for people never to drink alcohol and then drive. But
what if people do?
How much is “too much” if the
driver plans to drive? It’s a lot less than many might
think. Although it depends on each person and situation,
here is some general information on the problem.
The Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) of someone
who is drinking depends upon four things:
0 The amount of alcohol consumed
0 The drinker’s body weight
0 The amount of food that is consumed before and
during drinking
0 The length of time it has taken the drinker to
consume the alcohol.
According to the American Medical Association, a 180-lb. (82 kg) person who drinks three 12-ounce
(355 ml) bottles of beer in an hour will end up with a
BAC of about
0.06 percent. The person would reach the
same BAC by drinking three 4-ounce (120
ml) glasses
of wine or three mixed drinks if each had 1-1/2 ounces
(45
ml) of a liquor like whiskey, gin or vodka.
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It’s the amount of alcohol that counts. For example, if
the same person drank three double martinis
(3 ounces
or
90 ml of liquor each) within an hour, the person’s
BAC would be close to
0.12 percent. A person who
consumes food just before or during drinking will have a
somewhat lower
BAC level.
There is a gender difference, too. Women generally have
a lower relative percentage
of body water than men. Since
alcohol is carried in body water, this means that a
woman generally will reach a higher BAC level than a
man
of her same body weight when each has the same
number
of drinks.
The law in many U.S. states sets the legal limit at a BAC
of
0.10 percent. In a growing number of U.S. states, and
throughout Canada, the limit
is 0.08 percent. In some
other countries, it’s even lower. The BAC limit for all
commercial drivers
in the United States is 0.04 percent.
The BAC will be over 0.10 percent after three
to six
drinks (in one hour). Of course, as we’ve seen, it
depends on how much alcohol
is in the drinks, and how
quickly the person drinks them.
But the ability to drive is affected well below a BAC
of
0.10 percent. Research shows that the driving skills of
many people are impaired at a
BAC approaching
0.05 percent, and that the effects are worse at night. All
drivers are impaired at BAC levels above
0.05 percent.
Statistics show that the chance
of being in a collision
increases sharply for drivers who have a BAC of
0.05 percent or above. A driver with a BAC level of
0.06 percent has doubled his or her chance of having a
collision. At a
BAC level of 0.10 percent, the chance of
this driver having a collision is
12 times greater; at a
level
of 0.15 percent, the chance is 25 times greater!
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